IN this chapter we summarize some of the outstanding
findings of Part One; in addition, we compare certain of
these phenomena and their variations with other occurrences.

A. The Trend

We have noted that the trend in the birth-rate, stillbirth-rate, and the death-rate has been downward. We
found that for the birth-rate, the decline in trend for the
period 1900 through 1921 was 8.66 per cent. During the
same period, the stillbirth-rate declined 9.54 per cent; for
the death-rate the decline registered during that span of
years was 36.51 per cent. We found, further, that these
long-time tendencies were not unique either to Boston, to Massachusetts, or to the United States; they are well-nigh
universal phenomena. When we turned to marriages and
divorces, we found that the trend was decidedly upward.
For the period 1900 through 1920, the trend in marriages
increased 41.02 per cent; for divorces filed the trend
increased 118.54 per cent. We found, further, that the
population had increased during those same years 33.37
per cent. This means that, compared with the population, marriages and divorces have increased faster than
the population; marriages increased 22.92 per cent more
rapidly than the population: the number of divorces filed
increased 3.39 times as fast as did the population. We
found, further, that divorces increased about 2.75 times
as fast as did marriages.

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